Music must awaken people to do their duty as citizens and act.
Fela KutiRead
Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon of the future.
Interpretation
Music serves as a powerful tool for expression and change in society.
In this quote, Fela Kuti emphasizes the transformative power of music as a means of communication and resistance. He suggests that music can challenge the status quo and influence the future, positioning it as a weapon for social change and empowerment.
In practice
During a speech at a music conference to highlight music's role in social movements.
Music must awaken people to do their duty as citizens and act.
The rhythm, the sounds, the tonality, the chord sequences, the individual effect of each instrument and each section of the band - I'm talking about a whole continent in my music.
I'm playing deep African music.
The art, the greatness of the music, the experience of the music is what I'm about. I think most African artists have destroyed their artistry by commercialization, and I don't want to belong to that bag.
The human spirit is stronger than any government or institution.
My message was 'Think African. Make schools read African history.'
Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.
Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas.
Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies.
It is only the untalented director who imagines him or herself in every part, wants his or her own thoughts and emotions portrayed; it is only the untalented who make their own limitations those of the actors as well.
I started writing as a child. But I didn't think of myself actually writing until I was in college. And I had gone to Africa as a sophomore or something - no, maybe junior - and wrote a book of poems. And that was my beginning. I published that book.
We have no longer an outside and an inside as two separate things. Now the outside may come inside and the inside may and does go outside. They are of each other. Form and function thus become one in design and execution if the nature of materials and method and purpose are all in unison.
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